Purity: How it came out? (Read 534 times)

Totally Awesome Result!!! Beat PR set on 3/24 by 1:05!!!! NO FREAKING WAY MAN!!!
It was the "Purity Moosic City Dairy Dash 10K/5K" in Nashville, Tn.. Only 326 runners showed of the expected 700 for the 5K. I'd say it was due to the bad weather.
Thirty min. prior to the 8:15 start, there was heavy rain, strong winds and temp. of 49º.It was very ugly. Plus, my achillies was hurting, so I mentally checked this race off as training. At 7:55, it had slowed to a drizzle so I went for a quick warm-up run and stretching. Within minutes [Praise God for answered prayers] the wind and rain ceased!
With little time to spare, I hurried to the start where the crowd had already assembled. I placed myself about six rows back, where I spotted at least three women at the front. One was Amy Barrow, 49 (Female Overall Winner-18:40), who I'd planned on pacing off because of a 19:? she had posted on 1/1/07.
But she and the other women pulled away at the start and I couldn't bridge the gap, nor was I even going to try.
For one, they probably ran the first mile in 5:50ish, and secondly, I was trying to run a smarter, even paced 1st mile. Which I did, (Thanks to Jeff) hitting the first mile split in 6:11.
"Oh No, I've gone out too fast again". But no, feeling more relaxed than my last race and not laboring, I told myself to back it off just a bit. When I hit the second mile split my time was 6:26. At this point, some simple math equations entered my head. "Okay, 6:16 for 1, 6:26 for 2, I can slow to a 6:36 which would result in a 6:26 avg. = 19:57".
After mile 2, I was alone (running in no-man's land since .5m), running scared with visions of finishing in 20:01 and letting myself/those down who believed that I could possibly go sub-20.
I started pushing hard again, increasing my heart rate steadily and fighting the dreaded "mental-crap", I began chanting pRE, pRE, pRE (my new mental-mantra).
My gut was hurting since mile 2 and with a half mile to the finish I developed a stitch in my side. But no big problem. At 400 meters, a guy, who I hadn't seen before, passed me.
I hooked on and he led me to a fast-finishing split of 6:48 (1.1 m/6:11=to mile1).
At the finish I couldn't believe my eyes! The clock read 19:25. My actual chip-time was "19:22".
3 races in a 5 week period : [3/10] 21:27/6:56 [3/24] 20:27/6:36 [4/14] 19:22/6:15
And unlike the prior race, I actually feel like I left something out there.
I finished 2nd Place in the Master's Division behind a 18:21 by Keith Woodall, who I met after the race along with Mark Pierett[10k Master Winner] and Paul Scalisi, who is Middle-TN's top master runner. All of whom, amazed and puzzled about my stated progresssions, questioned me about what I was doing to have gotten so guick, so fast.
I was in awe and truly honored.
HeartRate Info: Avg/Max
Mile1] 157/162_88/91%
Mile2] 163/165_91/92%
Mile3] 166/169_93/94%
HRavg - 91/94%, same as race on 3/24 but 1:05 faster.

Ricky

—our ability to perform up to our physiological potential in a race is determined by whether or not we truly psychologically believe that what we are attempting is realistic. Anton Krupicka